Speaking Engagements

"Speaker showed real passion for what she was presenting. She
was very lively and engaging of the audience, I’d like to see her
speak again."

- Codemash 2018 Jewelbots Talk Attendee

"Before attending the session I really had no idea how to do accessibility testing .
The speaker makes it clear and concise. I really loved the presentation. I will be implementing the
pa11y for our project . Thank you"

- Codemash 2018 Pa11y Accessibility Talk Attendee

"This was just plain awesome. Great speaker, fun but meaningfully important topic, A+.
I can’t wait to try this at home!"

- Codemash 2018 Jewelbots Talk Attendee

"Great presenter!! Lots of passion about the subject. She presented the information so it
was understandable and made you want go purchase a jewelbot!!"

- Nebraska.Code() 2018 Jewelbots Talk Attendee

"Awesome talk. Presenter was excited about the talk, and exciting to listen to.
Well versed and presented."

- Nebraska.Code() 2018 Jewelbots Talk Attendee

"Excellent enthusiasm makes for a great talk! Good ideas for how to encourage girls in general,
but also in the specific JewelBots context."

- Nebraska.Code() 2018 'Jewelbots' Talk Attendee

"Fantastic! Great topic and Jennifer's personality made this a great session! Keep up the good work!"

- Nebraska.Code() 2018 'Hacking your work life __ balance to take over the world' Talk Attendee

"The session literally became life changing for me. The delineation between Hobby and Passion was like
a light bulb going off. I've always just assumed I had too many hobbies, now I can clearly distinguish hobby and
passion based on her criteria. Also I love the idea of your passion being the 3rd part of the triangle. I've felt
very unmotivated at work and at home I sometimes find it hard to work on my passions, now I know I have to force
myself and afterwards already by the weekend I was feeling better about my passions and how I was managing and
balancing the triangle. This session literally made me feel better about my life in a matter of a day or two."

- Nebraska.Code() 2018 'Hacking your work life __ balance to take over the world' Talk Attendee

"Jennifer's kind of energy is necessary in my opinion, it really lit a fire under my ass for sure.
Her presentation was a real shot in the arm adrenaline wise"

- Nebraska.Code() 2018 'Hacking your work life __ balance to take over the world' Talk Attendee

Current Talks

Hacking your work life __ balance to take over the world.

Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day, so how do some people seem accomplish so much more?
It’s time to learn to hack your work life __ balance to have more time to pursue your passion
projects, spend more time with those you love, while keeping your work ethic strong. Let’s take over the world!

Handling Angular 2+ Forms Without Losing Your Sanity

“Why’d you have to go and make things so complicated?” - Avril Lavigne, implementing Angular 2 forms in 2018

Forms are such a basic part of web applications; how did they get so complicated? This talk will very briefly walk through
Angular 2+ template driven vs. reactive forms and use cases for their implementation, then move into more complex
form validation, custom component implementations like typeahead and date-pickers, and use of the little known
but quite powerful Control Value Accessor to handle the trickiest of form problems! This talk will also include
some useful workarounds for those more complex PITA requirements that always seem to pop up in projects. You will
leave imbued with the power of the CVA.

Jewelbots: How to Get More Girls Coding!

Girls just wanna have fun … coding their own programmable jewelry! Jewelbots are the latest in wearable tech with
a great feature - they allow you to write your own code. This live demo of programming with Jewelbots will introduce
you to the Jewelbots API, showcase the latest awesome firmware updates(and how to get them), highlight fun projects,
and talk through tips on running workshops, mentoring, teaching, & encouraging young women in tech. Loops are easy
to understand when accompanied by color coordinated led lights!

Making Accessibility Testing Suck Less: An Intro to Pa11y.

Often the hardest part of any problem is simply how to get started. On the ever-evolving web accessibility is a
matter of ongoing importance: the brilliance of your code or sleekness of your UI is inconsequential if your app
or website is unusable to some of your users. With a million other issues already on your plate how do you find a
way to get started on accessibility testing? Pa11y to the rescue! Pa11y is a lightweight command-line accessibility
testing tool with enough flexibility to integrate results into your current testing process. This talk will explain
what pa11y does and does not cover, review examples of both command line and scripted usage, dive into the pa11y
web service and show how to modify output to work in your current testing setup. Bonus content: how to convince
the rest of your team and business why accessibility is worth prioritizing and how getting started with low-hanging
fruit can vastly improve your product.

There are no snow days when you work remote.

There’s been a huge push towards working remote lately - but is it the best choice for everyone? With different
personalities and different work styles, developers may or may not be a great fit for a remote-work lifestyle.
This talk will explore how to decide when working remotely is a good fit for someone personally, and how to figure
out it their current or potential employer is capable of supporting remote work in a way that allows employees to
be successful. The meat of this talk will be HOW to make #remotelife work for you by discussing strategies,
best practices, and boundary-setting + changing thought patterns to make remote work successful and fulfilling.

The 10 Commandments of Community Organizing

Welcome to the advanced class on community organizing. You’ve got a decent amount of members in your Meetup.com group,
you hold events fairly routinely, maybe you’ve pulled in some legit speakers at your last conference or event … and
you want to do more. This talk will focus on community organizing for growth and longevity by building out teams,
improving communications, implementing processes, and most importantly will discuss how to maintain sanity in your
work-life-volunteer balance. If you’ve ever had to answer the question “Oh, this ISN’T your full time job???”
- this talk is definitely for you. If you’re just starting out organizing and don’t want to fall flat on your face,
this talk will be very pragmatic for you.

Why Aren't There More Women Developers?

I have been asked this question more times than I can count in the last few years. In the last few years, I have also
typically been the only female developer at the companies I worked at. What’s the deal? In 1984 women were at an
all-time high for enrollment in Computer Science, at 39%. We’ve seen a steep drop since then. There’s a lot of
speculation as to why and I’ll highlight some reasons for you, but if we want to solve the diversity in tech problem
we’ll need to stop speculating and take action. I will highlight programs that are working towards gender balance in
technology and talk about how to bring them to your community and workplace, as well as explain how to make an impact
at a personal level through mentoring and advocating.